


Where Thou Art

by ladysassafrass



Series: Where Thou Art [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Post Reichenbach, coming home, inspired entirely by Series 3 trailer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-03
Updated: 2013-09-08
Packaged: 2017-12-22 06:37:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/910073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladysassafrass/pseuds/ladysassafrass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five faces in our lovely Series 3 trailer, and the five stories behind them. This is what happened when Sherlock comes home</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Mrs. Hudson

**Author's Note:**

> "Where thou art, that is home" - Emily Dickinson.

The mug broke with a clatter in the sink. She jumped. She always jumped, but not as much this time. It was the third mug she had broken this week. The first time, she cursed herself for being clumsy, for her shaky hands, some diagnosed condition that she couldn't pronounce but the doctor gave her pills for it. The second time, she cursed the mug for being slick with soap, for slipping through her fingers--

Like _him._

The soap on her hands burned her eyes, that's why, that was the reason they were tearing up. Yes…but no. No, she couldn't afford to lie to herself anymore, but oh how she wanted to. She dearly wanted to.

No, no, no, no no no. She was alright. She would carry on, as she always had. She would pretend it all was alright, that she didn't miss for whatever reason the gunshots in the morning, the violin into the night, the chemistry messes in the kitchen, the…human appendages in the fridge. She would not let her mind wander and get clumsy and such. Because that's how messes are made, you know. When you get clumsy.

… _Why?_

And here she was again. Oh, even though it had been months, perhaps years, since it happened, even though the former resident of 221B (still vacant by the way, she could never find someone else to take the place after John moved out) was but a shadow in her mind, somehow her mind would always end up in the place: staring square at herself, wondering why, _oh God_ , _why did he…why did this happen?_

Was it the police coming to visit? Did that have something to do with it? Or was it personal? He never thought much of what others thought of him, did he? Was he truly upset about his reputation? No, that just didn't seem very…him, of him. Then again, she'd never have guessed that he would…

Was this all of a sudden? Or was it a long time coming? Did she miss something? Was there a flicker in his eyes that she missed? A note of sadness in his voice that she overlooked? What did she miss? What did she not see?

 _Oh look at me,_ she thought with a choked snort, _I'm thinking like him now, aren't I?_ And the guilt grew heavier. Perhaps that was how this would go on; he'd left a mark on her heart and memory and through that mark, he'd live by her side. She'd think about him, and he'd never truly be gone. Just quieter, softer, never doing experiments, never rushing rudely to and fro, never mocking people, never…never…

"Dammit!" The swear surprised herself most of all. For a second, she gripped the sink as though the kitchen were a boat rocking on the rough seas and she was just barely hanging on. _Oh God..._ The soap in her eyes again, stinging, burning. _Oh God, oh God, oh Sher…_ His name burned. Just his name was enough to burn her through and through.

And so for just a moment, she stopped lying to herself and the tears fell forth and disappeared into the suds, which sat in sad little pillars of foams on the teacups. For a moment, she wept over the sink for _him_.

She never heard the door open or the floorboards creak. She never heard the swish of a thick, wool coat nor the click of expensive leather shoes. Old age, perhaps, had made her hard of hearing, or hard of heart, for she never, ever would have believed who was all of a sudden there in her kitchen.

"Mrs. Hudson."

A shriek escaped her mouth and she whirled around like a woman possessed. There, standing _there_ was…was...

She began to gasp; sand filled her lungs. Her hand leapt to her chest, which was hammering like a jackrabbit. The room spun and turned red. Everything turned red but him. It was him. She wasn't so hard of heart after all. In fact she felt quite soft, like butter melting in a saucepan, and the room became white and _oh dear_.

A pair of strong hands belonging to a dark figure with a pale face caught her fall. The room continued to reel like a bucking sea. She felt her tongue roll and her lips move. "Sher…lock…" And for the first time in months, it didn't burn. 

She caught a flash of white teeth just before the darkness overwhelmed her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry! She just fainted! She's fine!  
> Thank you for sharing in my Series 3 trailer feels and stay tuned for Lestrade next!


	2. Greg Lestrade

What was he doing here?

What the hell was he, a detective inspector, doing here?

Two hours ago, he was staring at himself in the bathroom mirror. Oh, look at him, look at what Greg Lestrade has become. The lines on his face, he swore they grew deeper by the day. His hair no longer even pretended to be brown. And his knees were giving him pains now; he couldn't jump up and down the stairs like he used to. Christ, he was in his forties and already he felt like an old man.

A short, sharp ping. Lestrade looked over to his bed and saw his phone screen lit up. Unusual. Immediately he ran through a list of who it wasn't. 

It wasn't the Chief Inspector, or anyone on the force, telling him to come on a case. He was still on administrative leave, after a bad day two weeks ago where it had come down to him, a sneering rapist in an interrogation room that they both knew he could not pin down, and a microphone cord. The rapist's lawyer tried to press charges of police brutality, but let them drop if the Chief Inspector let Lestrade go for a few weeks to 'set himself straight'.  
As humiliating as it was, Lestrade saw in his boss's eyes that it had only been a matter of time before this would happen. Not only was he still furious over Lestrade bringing a civilian to consult on official police matters, but also Lestrade had started to show his, well, incompetence without that civilian. Without Sherlock, what leads would have take mere hours to follow took days. Without Sherlock, he had hit twice as many dead-ends twice as often. Without Sherlock, he had found himself far too often making the desolate, disappointing walk to the filing warehouse, carrying a box marked 'Inconclusive'. Another case gone cold; another case he had failed.

It's like that bloody American song: 'you don't know what you've got till it's gone.' And perhaps, the dumb git that he was, he never realized just how much he needed Sherlock until Sherlock was, well, not there...

It wasn't Anderson and Donovan; they no longer spoke to him, or rather, he didn't speak to them. A month after…what happened, they took turns calling him, inviting him out to a drink. He knew what they were doing, what they would say. They would have said they were sorry, if he would forgive them, as if he were some priest who could absolve them of their sins. He knew what he would say to them: _I'm not the one who needs your sorries, and all your sorries aren't going to bring a man back from the dead._ He didn't, of course, say that. He just left phone calls go unreturned, invitations go unanswered, until eventually they stopped calling, stopped bothering.

And it certainly wasn't Celia; they didn't speak anymore. She'd run off with that P.E. teacher as Sherlock had so _perfectly_ predicted and now they were somewhere up North. He snorted to himself; _somewhere up North_. Considering the tabs he used to keep on her (out of genuine concern for her wellbeing, you know), it was a major step that he didn't know precisely where she was, and another major step that he didn't much care. Hopefully she'd see that soon. _No, no, don't think about her, don't think._

He picked up the phone: _New Text Message._

**_Parking garage, 2:10am. Come alone._ **

The number was blocked.

Damn prank, no doubt, or wrong number. He had half a mind to text back - but of course, blocked number, he couldn't text back. He let it be and went to the microwave to heat up the Chinese take-away.

_'If you can tell me how he does it, I'll stop him.'_

The memory hit him like a grenade shell. He froze completely. _Could it_ …no, he saw him lying on Molly's table glassy-eyed and bloody. He saw him in the coffin at the service. No, Sherlock Holmes was dead. Gone. Buried

Another ping. Lestrade groaned, paused, and then lunged for the phone. 

**_You know which one._  **

Number blocked.

What garage? There had to be a hundred in London alone- _no, stop it._

That was his police phone. Only a handful of people had that number- _no, no, Lestrade, don't think about it. Don't think._

_'You're thinking. It's annoying.'_

Another pang in his gut. It's a prankster. It's a wrong number. It's a trick. It's just a coincidence…

He should not go. He could think of a million and one reasons why he, a detective-inspector, should not be taking orders from texts from blocked calls in the wee hours of the morning.

 _1:00am_. The phone was still in his hand.

If it were him… _no_ , _don't even think about it_. But hypothetically, if it were him, the garage would be at Scotland Yard. That was the only garage he'd ever imagine Sherlock to know  - _no, not a chance in hell. Because that is where he is: hell. Because he is dead!_

 _1:30am._ If he were to make the walk, he'd have to go now. No, he should not go. _He is dead, dead, dead, dead-_

Then what could it hurt?

And before he could think anymore, he was pulling on his jeans and all but jumping into his coat. His footsteps thudded down the apartment stairs. The cool night air flooded his lungs and made him cough. He should not be doing this. He should not…He should not….

* * *

Scotland Yard's garage was empty, dark, and damp. Water dripped from the pipes above and formed a little pool in one of the concrete corners. He looked at his watch - 2:08am - before shoving his hand back in his pocket. His breath went up like a cloud beneath the flickering fluorescent light. Damn, it was cold.

What on earth was he doing here?

 _2:12am_. He looked around; still deserted. Something dropped inside him; no doubt hunger pangs, he still had that Chinese at home. "Well," he grumbled to himself. "That's that."  He pulled his coat closer as he prepared to leave. "No bloody point at all in coming after all. See, Lestrade? Dead. Dead as a doorma-"

A loud ping gave him a start and he cursed. The damn phone was a great deal louder in the silent concrete garage. What the hell was it now-

**_Wrong._ **

The phone nearly slipped from his shaking hands. "About what?" he mumbled automatically like a lunatic.

"I'd say," suddenly drawled a voice. "About everything" In the darkness, a vague outline of a tall man approaching him. Lestrade made out a black coat and a mop of thick curls in the flickering light.

"No…" he gasped. "Impossible…" He felt his eyes almost pop out of their sockets.

"Impossible?" The man snorted. "Or simply improbable?" And out from the shadows stepped an all too familiar pale figure.

The stupefied detective-inspector hunched over his knees, bracing himself. "Sherlock Holmes." He then let out a mirthless wheeze of a laugh. "Where the bloody hell have you been?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh Lestrade, you poor adorable man. I imagined he'd be the one who suffers the most career-wise and personal life-wise during Sherlock's absence, because all he has is his work, which he's not very good at.  
> Thank you for reading! Stay tuned for Mycroft!


	3. Mycroft Holmes

Once upon a time, Mycroft had a dream. He dreamed his little brother was sprawled on the ground, white as a ghost, pale blue eyes empty as the sky. The connection between dream and reality went without saying. Except, in the dream, his brother was spread across the floor of a bedroom, and beside him lay a collection of needles, and perhaps a bag of white powder; unlabeled, but unmistakable.

Mycroft always had a nagging feeling that his brother was never meant to grow old. Some may call it morbid, but he called it realistic. Sherlock's stint as a schoolboy and uni man had been difficult, to put it in the kindest words. Murders taught us daily that human beings can be cruel, but never to the same capacity as children. And his brother was cold, yes, but not a machine.   
The addiction - a coping mechanism for a world that Sherlock said bored him and Mycroft said disappointed him - made everything, absolutely everything, that much harder.   
So the gut feeling - or perhaps expectation - emanated from far too many close calls where Mycroft stared squarely at the possibility of Sherlock's death. Which is why when the phone call came, he'd sat quietly in his office with a glass of scotch and then gone home and finished a crossword puzzle before bed. Sentiment; he had no use for it.

But even so…suicide? While a wounded soul, Sherlock thought much too highly of himself to contemplate his own obliteration by his own hand. The man who threw himself off the roof was not the Sherlock Mycroft knew at all. Then again, John had changed things quite a bit. So maybe…it was possible, and Mycroft truly did not know the man who fell from the roof that day.

Falling upon that realization had triggered… quite a bad day for Mycroft, bad enough that he had to call in a vacation day. Anthea called three times in a panic to check on him, knowing very well that Mycroft had not taken a vacation day in the ten years he'd had this particular post. He let them go to voicemail, when he returned to work the next day, of course, in his third best suit, he threw her a plastic smile. She smiled back timidly, questioningly, but knew better than to voice her concern. That would lead to 'talking about feelings'. Sentiment; a dull and annoying topic of discussion.

Ironic (or fitting) that the danger nights that haunted the younger Holmes also plagued the elder. But thankfully, he never again had so bad a day that even work could not soothe him. Which is where he spent most of his time now, much to the silent complaint of his wife. Silent, because he suspected that she thought he was still working through the grieving process. He never corrected her. Sentiment; it always got the better of our judgment.

Even, he dared admit only to himself, his own.

* * *

It began with the operation to infiltrate Moriarty's web of illegalities in a post-Moriarty world. The government never publicly confirmed the existence of Moriarty. A useless exercise, he always told John who desperately wanted to untaint Sherlock's reputation, but it also served to privately lull Moriarty's liaisons into a false sense of security. It was largely a monitoring operation, a game of following and tagging and waiting. Routine, mundane, textbook.

Until one morning, an anomaly popped up.

"Sir?" Anthea had stood hesitantly by the door as he read through the morning news.

"Yes, what is it?" he replied with a huff, never looking up.

"I found something…odd." Her heels clacked obnoxiously on the hardwood floor as she approached. "You know the ten or so operatives we were tracking as part of Moriarty's network who had not yet fled Europe?"

"Were?"

"Well, five of them are dead, sir."

"Are we not still tracking the others at the present?"

"Yes…sir" Her jaw tightened. "But I looked into the five dead, our data on their movements, their habits, where they were eating, who they were talking to-"

"Whom."

"Sorry?"

"Whom they're talking to, Anthea. Continue."

He saw the flash of daggers in her eyes. He smirked internally. " _Whom_ , then, fine." She laid a manila folder on his desk and took out five surveillance photos of the five dead men. "These were all taken within three days of their deaths." Then she pulled out a second set of photos - the same ones, only each had a red circle. "In all the surveillance, I found a common denominator". Mycroft peered over his paper and pretended to take only a casual glance at it. The 'common denominator' was the vague outline of a man in the background dressed in black. His face was obscured in each photo by a hat, which changed with every photo.

Mycroft pursed his lips with a sigh. "Circumstantial at best; at this angle, it could be anyone, and not even the same person."

"I knew you'd say that." She laid before him a stack of data sheets and receipts. "Around the time of every death, at the location of each of these photographs, there was a man who paid in cash. When required to give his identity - and one clerk noted it came at great frustration - the name was James Marsden."

Mycroft's eyebrows flew up. "Like the actor?"

"Yes, that's why most of the clerks remembered him when I asked."

Mycroft knit his hands together and pressed them to his lips, deep in thought. "We suspected that these operatives had been eliminated as liabilities or roadblocks by other criminal empires-"

"But it's doubtful that an assassin would be so careless as to choose the name of a well-known actor," finished Anthea.

He bobbed his head in agreement. After a moment of puzzling on this development, he realized that Anthea had fallen silent. "Have you anything else to share?"

She paused, chewing on her lip. "One motel manager mentioned something; that when the man was asked to show identification at check-in, he got particularly rude and started accusing the clerk of defrauding guests. They got into a bit of a row and Marsden left. Later, it came out that the clerk was, in fact, mixed up in a huge identity theft scam. The manager didn't know how Marsden knew it; he described it as…" Anthea paused; worry creased her brow. "As if the man 'knew the scumbag's whole life story in one glance'."

For a long minute, Mycroft stared hard at Anthea and she stared back, trying simultaneously to gauge his reaction and hide her own.

"You are dismissed."

Anthea looked dumbstruck. "Mr. Holmes, I didn't mean-"

"I know very well what you mean." He snapped up his newspaper and reclined in his chair. "You are dismissed from my office."

Her mouth formed a little 'o' of relief. _Clack, clack_ went her heels on the hardwood floor.

"Find a clearer picture," he blurted out in the most nonchalant tone he could manage.

A pause, then clack, clack and the click of the lock. The office remained as silent as a castle until the secretary buzzed for his next appointment.

* * *

A week later, Anthea stood in his office again.

"One of our agents, a cabbie in-"

"You need not tell me where."

She blushed. "Right, plausible deniability, sorry."

Odd. She had not forgotten that before. 

"Anyway, while surveilling the sixth operative, the agent drove him to a local pub. The agent claimed he was being tailed by another cab; the operative didn't notice and the agent didn't bring it up until he met with his handler. He had us track down the cab. It had a camera in it." She laid three photos on Mycroft's desk "Based on the timestamp and our agent's timeframe, this" - her finger jabbed at the photo - "was the passenger in the trailing cab."

While the photos gave a much clearer form to the figure than the previous five, a ball cap and sunglasses obscured his face in each.

"Is it the same man?"

She blinked, looking as though he'd asked how to spell 'fork'. "Of course."

"Certainty of heart doesn't mean certainty in fact." He pressed his lips together wearily and looked down at the photos. "I see a Caucasian male, age ranging 25 to 40, wearing dark clothing, sunglasses, and a ball cap. Tall, perhaps dark-haired, but it can be dyed. Not exactly narrowing our search fields, now is it?"

"But I checked the hotels and the nam-"

"Even if he is checking under the same name," he said firmly, "it is still nothing more than circumstantial. We've no proof that he is responsible for the deaths of the five-"

"Six."

"Six?" His eyebrows shot up in genuine surprise. "I thought the sixth was merely injured."

"Died in hospital an hour ago. No cause of death yet; his injuries were bad, but not that bad. A witness claimed she saw just one nurse go in and out of there in that, a male nurse she'd never seen before."

"Could she describe him?"

"She didn't have to. He took the emergency stairs down. Looked to be in a rush, wasn't as careful as he was before." 

The hesitation in how she pulled the photo from her folder should have given it away. He should have realized what she was about to show him, what was to be revealed, in that very moment. But alas…

"This was the best we got." Anthea all but slapped the photo on his desk, then snatched her hand as thought it burned her.

The image showed a man in scrubs mid-run down a greenish-gray concrete shaft of stairs. He bent his head down, holding his arms aloft to hide his face, but the frame before Mycroft had caught him at an angle literally with his guard dropped. It revealed a pale, unmistakable profile.

Silence gripped the room, or at least its occupants. Nothing stirred; not a paper rustled, not a finger twitched, not a hair moved. Mycroft blinked once, twice and looked down at the photo, although he no longer really saw it. He felt… He could not figure out what he felt. Numb seemed close, though not accurate enough; hundreds of minute layers made up that numbness. The most discernible feeling he could name was shock, or a lack thereof. It was as though the smallest part inside of him had never believed his little brother was dead, and now here lay the proof.

Then he shook his head with an inward sneer. Sentiment; it was distracting him. There were duties awaiting him.

"Burn these."

"Sir?"

"You are not deaf, Anthea," he said in his most patronizing tone. "I assume you've told no one else besides myself of these."

"Yes."

"And that these are mere copies of certain sections of original evidence." 

"Yes."

"Certain sections that are otherwise irrelevant to the case at hand and thus can be…buried, so to speak."

Anthea nodded slowly, beginning to comprehend. "Yes."

"And that whatever discoveries you made on your time can easily be given another explanation if you are asked."

"Yes."

"Well then." Mycroft stood up and walked smoothly over to a crystal decanter of scotch. "Unfortunate what befell those six operatives." The liquor trickled into the tumbler like a delicate song. "But it would seem that a life of crime does not pay." A dramatic sigh escaped his lips, and his head shook with a look of utmost desolation as he took a sip from his glass

He dismissed Anthea, who threw a wordless smirk at him before bowing out. When she left, silence fell upon the office as before. But it was a different kind of silence; not one that rattled your bones and begged you to fill it with screams if you must, but one that seems natural, like a return to an equilibrium.

Mycroft wrinkled his nose. He didn't care much for poetry. Thankfully, a whole docket of reports awaited him to rectify his palate. And then tomorrow he had a dinner to attend, where a prestigious ministerial post would be filled. He had been notified ahead of time, of course, and had sent his best suit to the cleaners for the occasion. No acceptance speech necessary, but he did have to plan his move to the new office. 

 _James Marsden._ Mycroft let out a scathing chuckle. _Brother, you profound moron._

___

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. In the actual 'Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' books (namely 'Sign of the Four'), Sherlock injects cocaine into his arm, so yes, cocaine does not always have to be snorted.  
> 2\. Just chose James Marsden because he had the right level of celebrity and because I thought Benedict could pass as a James  
> Thank you so much for reading, this got very long, very quickly! Molly's up next, and then...the big one.


	4. Molly Hooper

 Speech: a human behavior that uses generally the brain (specifically, the left frontal lobe and back temporal lobe), lungs, trachea, larynx, pharynx, and a combination of the lips, tongue, jaw, and soft palate to articulate an infinite range of noises that somehow hold meaning to other humans. Speech was an active motion, requiring movement and energy. And every motion has an inactive counterpart; a state of rest in contrast to a state of stress (which of course, doesn't mean _stress_ stress like missing the Tube, but just something that goes beyond normal exertion). Thus the normal state of a human was in silence.

Science said it took energy to speak, to go from a state of rest to a state of movement. So why on Earth was the act of emphatically _not_ doing something so wearing?

The first month, Mrs. Hudson made it the hardest.

It wasn't her fault, of course; everyone had the right to grieve, particularly poor Mrs. Hudson of all people. Two weeks after it all happened, she started inviting Molly over for tea. "Could use the company," she said, throwing in a shaky laugh to pretend it was all fine. Molly smiled over the phone, playing along, but politely refusing. It wasn't until the fifth invitation that Mrs. Hudson's determination and guilt-playing got the better of her.

The talk was fine (the old woman never ran out of things to talk about), and the tea itself was good. But it was when the talk would stop, when Mrs. Hudson would take a breath or sip of tea, that was when the silence would slip in like a knife. That was when the teacup rattled in Mrs. Hudson's hand, That was when the shiny drops began welling in her eyes. That was when the room pleaded Molly to fill the silence, to say the one thing she could not say.

That was when the teacup shattered, a million pearls on the wood. Just like…and everything shattered, and Mrs. Hudson shattered, too. 

"I'm--I'm sorry," the old woman blubbered in between wretched sniffs. "It's just--sometimes--you know, it's g-gets to me." 

And Molly had to bite her lip, nod sympathetically, pretend she was going through the same grief, and ignore the screams in her head that _Sherlock is alive! He's alive! Don't cry, he's alive!_  

The second month, Lestrade made it the hardest.

He was constantly irritable, eternally peeved at the world. His hair, Molly noticed, had grayed significantly since she last saw him. The wrinkles by his eyes had dug deeper and sagged. Whether due to stress or normal aging, it was hard to tell; she'd have to check him under a microscope, she thought with a stupid chuckle. But once, he had snapped at her over the speed of test results for a pharmaceutical drug in a victim's body. The veins bulging from his face and neck made for a terrifying anatomy study. 

It was only when Lestrade caught sight of Molly's upper lip (oh, she tried to stop its trembling) that he stopped, his face vaguely horrified at what he had done. He looked like an old bear who'd lost his growl. That's when Molly realized how much he missed Sherlock too - in his own way. So when Lestrade mumbled a dumb apology and rushed out the morgue doors, it was Molly who was left feeling sorry.

A while later, two investigators blatantly ignoring the no-smoking signs in her lab mentioned his name and something about 'probation'. She didn't ask them about it, nor did she tell them off about the 'no-smoking' sign (though the choice words she put in her journal that night made even herself blush). 

Then the third month…

 _No, I don't even want to think about the third month_ , she thought shakily as the locker room door slammed shut. _No, no, no, no…_

But of course, her resolve was empty and so the memory washed over her brain anyway.

The third month, it was John who made it the hardest.

Before then, she had not seen him at all. Not that she blamed him; she imagined that to him, the lab was a place that reeked of Sherlock. Not to mention the rooftop...

But nine weeks after it happened, Molly walked into her morgue one morning to find the old soldier standing over an autopsy table, his hands gripping the sides to brace his weight, his head hung like a wilted flower  
When the door clanged shut, John looked over at Molly with a dazed look, as if he were sleepwalking. "S-sorry, I, erm…" He pursed his lips, studied linoleum for a little. An empty laugh escaped him suddenly. "It's funny, I…I came without really thinking about it…you know sometimes he-" John stopped. Silence screamed throughout the room. "Would…stay late, doing experiments or something and this morning, I just…forgot…" His lip had begun to tremble. Knuckles turned white as they gripped the table. Molly was frozen where she stood.

"God, I'm sorry," said John in a choked voice. "I should…I should go."

Molly didn't remember how long she stood there after the morgue doors swung shut.   
The next day, she called the hospital and astounded her boss with a request for her first two-week vacation. She went to her mum's, who opened her arms but with questioning eyes that Molly ignored. That night, she laid in her old bed, stroking the cat while silent tears dribbled down her cheek.

 _Sherlock, you cruel, cruel man_ , she cursed silently in her sleep. _You cruel, inhuman man_.

And such was how she cursed him in the dark, empty locker room, who knows how many months later since she'd helped fake his death. Although it had gotten easier, she still lived from day to day, congratulating herself emptily after each for not collapsing in on herself.

Day after day, day after day.

And who knew how many there were to go.

"Good evening, Molly."

It was like five defibrillators went off in her chest all at once. The scream she let out was quickly covered by a leather glove and Molly began to wriggle and squirm as she was suddenly engulfed by a figure in a massive black coat and pale skin and…

Those eyes.

"It would be most convenient that once I remove my hand from your mouth, you do not scream, Molly," said a droll Sherlock.

Once upon a time, Molly had dreamed of this man sweeping her off her feet in such a manner. But at that moment, when the glove lifted off her face, Molly had a very different response.

 _Smack._ Sherlock had barely moved when her hand cracked across his face, but his eyebrows rose in genuine surprise. 

"You _fool_ ," growled Molly through gritted teeth, taking advantage of a speechless Sherlock. "Do you know what you've put everyone through? Do you _know_ the pain that you've caused?" It was like a well of long-buried rage had suddenly ruptured in Molly and now everything was spewing out. "Mrs. Hudson," she squeaked, her voice rising. "Just think of what poor Mrs. Hudson thought to see your coffin laid out in a church. Think of Lestrade; you may not think he cares, but he _does_ , more than you ever know. Think of your _brother_ , you heartless twat! _Your. Brother!_ And not least of which, think of-"

"I know," said Sherlock firmly.

"No, I don't think you do," she snarled back. (Snarled? Molly, snarl?) "I don't think you have any idea what they've gone through. What John has gone through, and now he's-- he's…" Molly stopped.

"He's what?"

No, she couldn't tell him, she couldn't tell him what had happened.

"Molly," Sherlock growled low and dangerously. "John is _what_?"

"He's…he's…"

And everything shattered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so so sorry for the delay, everyone! Get ready for the finale and the last (and certainly not least) person Sherlock has to see again.  
> Dun-dun-dun DUN!
> 
> EDIT (27/10/13): John's story has a whole story of his own because I have no sense of restraint :D Check it out in the second part of this Series!


End file.
